In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,134
he’d worn just hours ago, he’d donned a white lawn shirt. He’d not bothered with a jacket. And she drank her fill of him. Preferring him in this state of undress. It was how she’d forever see him in her mind. Shoving her hood off, Lila leaned against the door. “How did you know it was me?”
Looping his arms around his head, Hugh reclined in his wingback chair. “I know the cadence of your footsteps.”
Lila cocked her head. “Impossible.”
“You tread heavier on the forward fall.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed.”
Well, there had gone her element of surprise.
“I trust your family doesn’t know you’re here?”
“You trust correctly on that.” Though after she’d been escorted out of the marquess’s residence, she’d been altogether certain her siblings intended to stand guard outside her rooms as if she were once more Lila March in need of protecting. Lila pushed herself away from the door and, loosening the clasp at her throat, freed herself of her cloak. “I must confess, I’m disappointed in you, Your Grace.”
Hugh grinned. “‘Your Grace,’ am I?”
“That is your title,” she pointed out.
“Aye, it is. You were saying?”
When she reached the opposite side of his desk, she stopped. “I was stating my displeasure.”
Hugh let his arms fall. “I believed it was disappointment?”
She planted her palms on the surface of his cluttered desk. “It is now both.”
He smoothed his features. “Forgive me. Carry on.”
Hmph. He hardly sounded contrite. Lila leaned forward. “You did not come. I expected you would, and . . . you didn’t.” She straightened. “As such, I was required to take matters into my own hands.”
Hugh shoved lazily to his feet, unfurling every last splendid six foot six inches of his magnificent frame. “And is that what I am . . . a matter?”
“Oh, y-yes.” Lila’s voice wavered as he started a slow, sleek, pantherine stride around the desk. Her mouth went dry. She struggled through a wicked desire for the man before her and found her words. “I came to ask you to marry me.”
That managed to bring Hugh up short.
Lila cleared her throat. “I know it is highly unconventional, and I’ll have you know I thought good and long about it before I set out this evening, and I surmised that I’ve not really been conventional in many ways.” She wrinkled her nose. “Really any. As such, it seemed entirely appropriate to come, since you did not,” she added for good measure, “and tell you how ardently I love you and want a life with you.”
Hugh opened his mouth.
“Of course, I also had much time on the way here to consider you might not be amenable to marriage.” Lila squinted. Was he . . . smiling? Except, the light cast by the hearth merely sent shadows playing off his face, and it very well may have been nothing more than an illusion. “Because of . . . my other dreams.”
“I intended to come,” he murmured.
Lila blinked slowly. “You did.”
“I did.” He resumed his stroll.
“And . . . what did you intend when you came?” she said, her voice breathless.
Hugh stopped, perching himself on the side of his desk, and then reaching for her, he drew her between his legs. “I intended to tell you how ardently and desperately I love you.”
“Y-you did?”
He touched his lips to the curve of her jaw, bringing her lashes closed. “I did.” Straightening, Hugh moved his mouth in a slow trail, lower, to her nape. “Then I intended to get down”—and he proceeded to drop to a knee, earning a soft gasp from her—“and ask that you be my duchess.”
A smile pulled. “Did you?” She slid her fingers through his dark curls and tipped his face up so he looked at her.
He grinned. “Oh, yes. However, I had business to see to.”
That was why he’d not come. Which of course made sense. There was the matter of his meeting afterward with Connor Steele, and the marchioness being carted off. There had been reasons enough that he hadn’t come.
Hugh stood. “You were the business I had to see to.”
A little giggle bubbled up from her throat. “And is that what I am, Your Grace? Business?”
He looked back with a serious set to his features. “It is an important part of who you are. Just one of the many parts I love of you.”
Lila’s heart fluttered in her chest as she allowed Hugh to pull her into his arms once more and take her mouth in a slow, searing kiss. Before he set her away.
Reaching past Lila, Hugh fetched a sheet and handed it over.
“What is . . . ?” Her words trailed off as she read. Unable to speak, she lifted her gaze to his.
“I would have supported you in whatever dream you had, because of who you are: you are a woman of courage and strength and convictions. I didn’t truly understand what you wished to create . . . until tonight.” Terror turned his eyes nearly black. “When I saw her . . . with that gun at your chest, I died a thousand deaths, and every one of them would have been preferred to a life without you in it. And then, I understood your vision . . . and I want you to have that.”
Tears filled her eyes, blurring his beloved visage, and she blinked frantically in a bid to see the words there.
“I was drafting the paperwork that would see the property in your name. I know you have funds of your own”—he shifted and bounced on the balls of his feet in that endearing telltale gesture of his nervousness—“however, I thought if you had this property, then you’d be able to use all your funds for the operation of—oomph.”
Lila launched herself against Hugh, toppling him back so they landed atop the desk.
Papers and parchments rained down upon the floor.
“I trust this means you like—”
“I love it,” she rasped, kissing him. “I love you,” she said when she pulled her mouth from his.
“And I love you, Lila March.”
He smiled, a beautiful, sincere grin that dimpled his left cheek and glimmered in his eyes. Lovingly, she stroked her index finger along his lips. How different this smile was than at their first meeting. How different hers was. For so very long, they’d both been trapped by their pasts. Together, they’d found a way out.
And with a giddy laugh, Lila threw her arms about him, kissing him once more.
Christi Caldwell is the USA Today bestselling author of the Lost Lords of London series, the Sinful Brides series, and the Wicked Wallflowers series. She blames novelist Judith McNaught for luring her into the world of historical romance. When Christi was at the University of Connecticut, she began writing her own tales of love—ones where even the most perfect heroes and heroines had imperfections. She learned to enjoy torturing her couples before they earned their well-deserved happily ever after.
Christi lives in southern Connecticut, where she spends her time writing, chasing after her son, and taking care of her twin princesses-in-training. Fans who want to keep up with the latest news and information can sign up for Christi’s newsletter at www.ChristiCaldwell.com.